Linux can see external USB SSD but can not use it

[Blind Dave]

Hello everyone!

I hope that you are in good health and enjoying a great week.
Please go easy as I am not very good with computers.

I have a laptop.
It is a PC Specialist one but it is a bit old now, the battery refuses to charge, I can't afford a new one.

It tells me:
Operating System: Linux Mint 19 Cinnamon
Cinnamon Version: 3.8.9
Linux Kernel 4.15.0-213-generic
Processor: Intel Core i5-8250U CPU @1.6GHz x 4
Memory 7.7 GB
Hard Drives 479.6 GB
Graphics Card: Intel Corporation UHD Graphics 620

The computer has not been working well. I keep getting a message telling me that "file system root" has run out of space, and I have deleted tons of stuff but it just keeps running out of space.
The battery refuses to charge.

I googled and found various solutions to the mysterious issue with file system root running out of space. Found various solutions, tried them all, none worked.

So I figure I'll just back up all the important stuff to an external drive, unplug it, wipe the internal drive and install the most up to date Mint, brand new, totally fresh.

So I bought a Crucial BX500 1TB 2.5" SSD, put it into a Pluscom enclosure and USB connected it to the laptop.

The Linux can see it, it's there in Computer. It has the same little picture as the internal drive (and the " File System" one that keeps running out of space) and it is labelled CT1000BX500SSD1 (M6RC072)

The flaw in my plan is that Linux won't let me move anything to it. I can't even open it. If I try to double click it says "Unable to mount location. Can't mount file"

Disks tells me it's there, "1.0 TB Disk CT1000BX500SSD1"
Disks says
Model CT1000BX500SSD1 (M6CR072)
Size 1.0TB (1,000,204,888,016 bytes)
There's a serial number and then it says "Disk is OK, one bad sector"

Then it has "Volumes" and that just says 1.0 TB Unknown

Below that it has "size" again (same value as above)

"Device" which says /dev/sda
"Contents" which indicates "Unknown"

What have I done wrong?
All I want to do is back up all the documents and spreadsheets onto the external drive, reinstall a new Mint on the laptop and then load all the documents and spreadsheets back onto the laptop.

If the computer couldn't see the external drive at all I'd be less sonfuced, but the computer can see the external drive and knows how much space it has and what it's serial number is... so why can't it use it?!? And how can I fix it please?

Best regards

Dave

[Commissioning]

It seems like the file system is either not existing or not recognised. You do not mention formatting the new disk, did you do that ? Try using Gparted to see how it is partitioned and what file systems exist on the partitions, as this is the second disk it should be recognised as sdb but anyway you should be able to ID it by the size.

[Blind Dave]

Hello there,

Thanks for replying to me.
No, I have not formatted the drive, is that not something done at the factory?
If I have to format it what is the simplest way to do it so that I can use it working at home with the mint laptop and also use it at work where all machines are windows?

Also, I bought the drive because I wanted to back up all the important stuff and then try reinstalling mint on the laptop because it kept giving me low space warnings even though I was not saving anything on the laptop too and was in fact deleting stuff because it kept warning me about low space.
It seems I may have left it too late though because now it will not let me log in. I type the password in correctly, the screen goes blank like it's about to log in but then it returns me to the log in screen.

Best regards

Dave

[AndyMH]

Do you have an install stick to hand - you can do all the below from it?

Bare drives come blank you have to format them first. That means putting a partition table on the drive and then creating partition(s).

Probably easiest for you to do this in disks. On the menu behind the 3-dot button top right (if LM19 it might be 3 dashes) you want "Format Disk", accept the defaults (GPT). Make sure you select the correct drive on the left, this wipes the drive.

When that is done, click in the "free space" and click on the + button, accept the defaults (ext4), give it a volume name (label), keep the name simple no spaces.

It should then appear in your file manager under devices with the name you gave it. Click on it to mount and then you can copy stuff to it.

[decrepit]

When that is done, click in the "free space" and click on the + button, accept the defaults (ext4), give it a volume name (label), keep the name simple no spaces.

It should then appear in your file manager under devices with the name you gave it. Click on it to mount and then you can copy stuff to it.

Trouble is Andy, Blind Dave wants to use it at work with windows computers. ext4 won't be any good there.
A windows system that linux can use would be the best bet if he really needs to do that.

[NM64]

Assuming you're not installing any Linux OSes onto the SSD＊, then you can use NTFS—just don't use NTFS's optional compression or you could have a bad time.

Technically it'd be best to format as NTFS via Windows, but I'm not sure it'd really make a difference. All I know is that, when I tried formatting large SSDs and copying/reading lots of data simultaneously, I would sometimes get errors with exFAT regardless of distro and regardless of disk, yet NTFS ended up always "just working" with the exact same scenario (with the exception of when NTFS compression is enabled ).



EDIT: I was just reminded by another thread of an NTFS bug in the Linux kernel 6.8 that is used by Mint 22(.0)... If Mint 22.1 ends up upgrading to kernel 6.11 (it's unclear if this is what the Mint team meant by following the HWE Ubuntu kernel releases or not), then this could be a non-issue in a few months time anyway.

Of course, if you're not on Mint 22(.0), then it's all a non-issue regardless.


＊fun fact: you can even install Mint itself onto a USB-connected drive (no, not the live ISO, but the actual non-live OS installation)...though it then requires you to have the drive connected via USB just to boot into the OS and trying to connect it via SATA won't work (same goes for if you initially install via SATA and try booting via USB)

[Blind Dave]

Thank you for the advice.

So to format it I'm best to format it on a Windows machine but then it should work for both?
That sounds ok, I'll give that a go and post separately for help on the new inability to log in issue that has afflicted the laptop.

I really appreciate the help, I'm not a computer person and if I didn't have to use them for work I'd be more than happy to not mess around with this stuff. It's not intuitive to me like it is to lots of people.

Best regards

Dave

[RIH]

You can format to NTFS with Gparted or Disks on Linux.

You must turn off hibernation/fast startup in Windows though otherwise you will not be able to add or amend the disk in Mint.

[Blind Dave]

Hello again

Just thought I'd update everyone.

I plugged it into a Windows machine. Windows wouldn't format the drive, not sure why.

I realised that it'd have to be formatted on the Linux laptop if it was going to be formatted at all due to the Windows machine not cooperating.

Because I was stuck in a log in loop that I suspected was linked to the warnings the Linux had been displaying ("file system root is low on space"), that kind of thing, I googled for that and found a bunch of solutions that didn't work but then there was one that recommended
* Enter the terminal using ctrl alt F2
* Enter name & password
* Enter"sudo apt-get install mdm"
That wouldn't work though, I got error message "you don't have enough free space in /var/cache/apt/archives/

But then more googling found a small post that said F2, enter name & password and then:
sudo apt-get autoclean
sudo apt-get auto remove

Did that (no idea what that does to the computer) and it let me log in!

Once in I followed the steps to format the drive, avoided the ext4 because someone said it wouldn't windows, just made it all one partition because it's just to back up stuff temporarily.

It worked!!
It's now copying stuff onto the drive and once it's done I'll plug it into a different computer to check it's all copied ok.
As long as the copying has worked I'll then wipe the internal drive on the laptop, install newest Mint. Hopefully that will solve the mysterious "file system root running out of space" issue. Then I can move the data back onto the laptop from the back up.

BIG THANK YOU everyone!! I'm really grateful for all your help!

Best regards

Dave

[NM64]

Even though it sounds like the issue is solved, I do just want to quickly address the following:

You must turn off hibernation/fast startup in Windows though otherwise you will not be able to add or amend the disk in Mint.

This shouldn't be an issue since the disk in question is not used to house an actual bootable Windows installation (you wouldn't be able to boot Windows just from copying & pasting files anyway), so I don't believe this is an issue.

...but as someone that went straight from Windows 7 to Linux Mint and never dealt with hibernation/fast startup in newer versions of Windows, I reserve the right to be incorrect.